Pantheons - an experiment in metagaming.
 

Hokay, peeps, this one might be a bit seat-of-the-pants as it's a new concept. I think it'll work better for bigger games, so I'm hoping for enough interest to make this a borderline megagame, but that may be a pipe dream. Post if you're at all interested, I guess.

Number of players: many. Seriously, the more the better.
Map: Depends on the number of players, but I think a large one. works better for the concept.
Mods: CBM 1.6, Holy War, Endo's Site Mod. Others by request, perhaps. I'm inclined to allow mod nations.
Settings: Mostly default. HoF 15, renaming on.
Era: Probably MA, but if interest is huge I'll make it all ages.

Victory: Victory by Pantheon.

Okay - the last point is the USP for this game. Instead of 'Only the One True God may win', a pantheon of Pretenders can be acclaimed victors. A monotheism could win, but I reckon pantheons are likely to do better.

There won't be any preset pantheons, either. That would make it a team game. You'll have to work them out as you go along instead, in a kind of diplomatic manner. There can be ranks within a pantheon, too; a King/Queen of the gods, deities of war, love, fire or whatever, and demigods below them.

I'm kind of expecting points to be raised for discussion before the game begins, as I doubt I've thought of everything. I'll try to update the top post with relevant bits as we go.

Re: Pantheons - an experiment in metagaming.
 

There should be a limit on the amount of winners. Maybe 2 or 3. Or else you will just have a 10 man team form, wipe everyone out in a few turns, and end the game.

Re: Pantheons - an experiment in metagaming.
 

Yep, everyone could just form a single team and win immediately!

One idea that someone had before was that a certain number of players (e.g. 2 for a smallish game) could be "superpower" nations. Analogous to, say, the US and Russia during the Cold War. They may or may not be more powerful in any meaningful sense. However, all the other players can choose to ally themselves to a superpower, and then wins if that superpower wins. So the superpowers have to browbeat their neighbours into joining their cause, and then direct them to victory.

Re: Pantheons - an experiment in metagaming.
 

An idea Ive had for a game that would kind of fit in with this line of thought was to have a game where teams were formed based on their Magic affinity. Like a Death pantheon, Fire pantheon, Water pantheon etc..

Something like that would pretty much have to be all ages though. And you would still have nations that defied easy classification which I suppose in that case they could choose one of their stronger forms to join.

Re: Pantheons - an experiment in metagaming.
 

I'd be up for this kind of game, and i like Psi's idea. definatly need a certain size limit. but psi's idea makes it a team game which it sounds like you don't want. maybe they could all start near each other, like in the water plane of existance, and they'd have to fight it out until there was only three left, and then they would come down to the other realms and try and conquer the world. this would make kind of a cool transition from free for all to team

Re: Pantheons - an experiment in metagaming.
 

Im not completely sure how that would be different than many games that already get played. In many of the larger longer-running games the winner has been an alliance group. Altho that has irritated some people who try to say that the game isnt supposed to be played that way, its never bothered me. I tend to treat my alliances more honorably than some. Coming to the point of "now we must fight each other" and declaring the game done instead sits well with me.

But, I have always been in favor of making things clear at the start of a game. Some people would join, and others not, if that was mentioned at the start. Declaring that it is acceptable for a Pantheon Win as part of the games conception might help to smooth things later.

Gandalf Parker

Re: Pantheons - an experiment in metagaming.
 

New thought..
we still need a place to collect game options. Maybe create a checklist for people who are about to start a game. The wiki?

Re: Pantheons - an experiment in metagaming.
 

Actually, I had no objections to everybody forming a pantheon and winning immediately. It's a happy ending for everyone involved, after all :D

It'd be nice to see decently sized pantheons (10+ pretenders), but I guess that'd need a lot of players before it became viable - well over 20 or something like that.

I don't think there's anything to stop a player being a part of two or more pantheons, providing they're devious enough.

A hard cap of some sort might be okay - 25% of total player numbers? Or maybe 50%, even.

I'd like to encourage things towards a certain fluidity in organisation, with people changing sides when they get a better offer or rebelling against their own side to gain advancement.

Re: Pantheons - an experiment in metagaming.
 

How about if you set the composition of "Pantheon" in stone at the start of the game? Like that a pantheon can at max, have a King/Queen/Lord of Love/War/Wisdom/Death. The King and Queen of the "last standing" pantheons are "winners" while the "Lords" share a second place. Or you can just have King be "1st" and Queen "2nd" and so forth. (this way, people can be bribed to switch sides, "Heck, who wants to be lord of death, you can be the king in our pantheon!")

And I don't know if it would work, but you could also impose a rule that you can only be a lord of "X" if you fill some thematic requirements. B6F6 Moloch as the "Lord of Love" is a "no-can-do". Of course the reguirement for being King/Queen is just being powerful enough (and the right gender, of course). This would prevent the "the six most powerful nations form a pantheon and win" problem, since it's unlikely that they could form a legal pantheon from their gods. This would force alliances to form between not-so-optimal players and nations (and make pretender design a bit... complicated, to say in the least).

You'd need a out-of-game "judge" to decide whenever a certain god can be a thematic fit for a "lord" position, thought. (I volunteer, since it's very unlikely that I'd join a game of such epic scale)

Re: Pantheons - an experiment in metagaming.
 

Some people can be very creative in their RPGing. A B6F6 or even D6 God of Love? Ever listened to the song "Masochism Tango" (one of my favorites in my WTF playlist)

Re: Pantheons - an experiment in metagaming.
 

Tom Lehrer? I have the boxset. Gotta love 'Poisoning the Pigeons in the Park'...

The idea of rank in the pantheons probably needs formalising, yes.

King/Queen (or a pair of Queens :D - maybe safer to say Ruler and Consort) first and second, then... Underworld/War/Love(Lust)/Wisdom, in that order. God of Thunder probably comes pretty high on the list, come to think of it.

It'd be nice if the head of a pantheon could set up his own list of ranks and portfolios, but that would require a neutral admin figure. Might be good, though.

Re: Pantheons - an experiment in metagaming.
 

Two ideas:

One would be to simply have the pantheons be teams with certain limitations. The teams would last through the entire game, and would win or lose together. As an example, the Norse team would be required to have several titans and some sort of trickster, with certain thematic paths required of each pretender (e.g. A4 for the titan who is their thunder god ). The Hindu Pantheon would have various Devas and 4-armed pretenders, the Lovecraft pantheon would consist of Dagons and other weird creatures, etc. I kind of like this, if only because it could result in a team of frost giants fighting against a team of tiny monkeys with sticks.

A second idea would be that pretenders take their place in the pantheon not by their words, but by their actions. This takes a page from several role playing games, such as _Invisible Armies_, _Artesia_, and of course _Pantheon_. The game would start normally, with people having complete freedom to design their pretender and make treaties and alliances. However, by their actions players would earn points toward certain roles in the Pantheon. For instance, if you charmed/seduced many enemy units, and summoned many Dryads, and had growth scales, then at the end of the game you would have many points towards being the God of Love. Or if you cast the Forge of the Ancients, and possessed 8 of the most powerful artifacts, and had 30+ hammers, then you would earn many points towards having Vulcan's role in the Pantheon. Similarly, other actions would earn you points towards being the God of Death, of War, of the Oceans, etc. The game would end when the head of the Pantheon is recognized by acclaim, as usual. This pretender would be in first place. At that time the surviving Pretenders would be assigned their place in the Pantheon based upon their points in the various categories. So, if at the time of acclaim one pretender had Burden of Time up, and had D8 on their pretender, and had 12 liches, they would probably have the most death points and would become the new God of Death in the Pantheon (i.e. one of the second place positions). This option would take more moderation work during setup and during the final tallying. However, I would volunteer for that role if people wanted to play such a game.

Re: Pantheons - an experiment in metagaming.
 

I like the idea.

Edit: As a woman I dislike the idea of king = 1 and Queen = 2. I´d prefer if that was decided by power rather than gender. If I´m a female pretender and most powerful in my pantheon then I´m the queen and in first place.

No offense though, I´ve become well used to gamers having a gender perspective that is rather...dusty.

You could set a fixed hierachy but let the players make up the titles themselves within the pantheon.

Re: Pantheons - an experiment in metagaming.
 

Fixed hierarchy but player-made titles sounds pretty good, actually. Maybe have one 1st place, one 2nd place, and three 3rd place as the formal structure. You can of course make nebulous alliances with other nations and promise 'ranking' spots if they become more powerful, but in the end there will only be 5 ranking spots on a team.

Re: Pantheons - an experiment in metagaming.
 

I think an all-ages mod would be good for such game to provide needed diversity. Also, quite a lot of players will probably be needed to make most ot of this concept. A great game idea, by the way.

Re: Pantheons - an experiment in metagaming.
 

Very interesting idea, and I'd sign into the lovecraftian team without a second thought ;)

I liked the Ruler+Consort idea - like Fantomen said, the pantheon shouldn't simply be a patriarchal system (while many are, I bet not all of the real world pantheons are patriarchal).

Having a general hierarchy as forced (eg. ruler+secondary ruler with titles + 2-3 gods of specific elements/emotions/forces) would probably be a good idea. One pantheon could be something like:
1. Overlord
2. Overlords insane messenger, being the god of stars. Handles most out-of-pantheon diplomacy
3-5. God of (in)sanity (Astral, blood), God of deep reaches, where devout followers throw themselves (Death, earth), God of destruction (Air, fire).


About the points system AdmiralZhao suggested - it'd be hard to track. And general guidelines would be needed to be made to succeed in it. It'd be easier if players could just title themselves in the teams, after consulting the other players about that role. There shouldn't be any forced roles, with exception of the ruler+consort+followers. Fill them as you see fit within the Pantheon.

Re: Pantheons - an experiment in metagaming.
 

O yeah. The King as 1st and Queen as 2nd thing was a bit sexist, sorry about that, it was late when I typed that post. It's pretty easy to fix, thought. The players in the team decide whenever the pantheon is pathriachal or matriarchal, or to be blunt, whetever the King position is the 1st or 2nd in the given pantheon. This could result in more politicing within the pantheon. Or if things get awesome enough, even betrayal when a powerful nation switches sides because the vote put him in second place.

There is a problem if you just allow any players just make up a pantheon from any gods. How do you prevent the top six nations just going in and forming the "winning" pantheon? Note that I'm talking about nations, because just think about it. Let's say that top six nations is composed from two separate pantheons. Why wouldn't these nations just ditch their former pantheons and weaker allies and form a "top 6" pantheon? Even if one of the players in the "top 6" pantheon gets eliminated, they'll likely just assimiliate the new top 6 nation to replace the fallen one.

Remember that according to Gregstrom, the idea was not to make a team game. But rather, the alliences are formed in-game. Also, Greg made the point about a one god being in several pantheons, this would of course reguire the pantheons being secret, only to be revealed in a winning position. This could make it rather hard to know which pantheon is winning and make the "gang the leader" tactic guite hard to implement.

Re: Pantheons - an experiment in metagaming.
 

What if everyone was in several, randomized pantheons at the start of the game? Say, each player is in 3 pantheons of 5 players. And whenever someone from a pantheon is killed, the strongest person in the game who isn't in that pantheon, is considered to be a part of it. This could get some weird situations though, and is somewhat away from the direction a lot of you are talking about.

Re: Pantheons - an experiment in metagaming.
 

The problem with that is that it's not really different from a team game since you don't have much choice for who you can ally with. OTOH, you could do the reverse: at most one god of Fire, one god of Water and so on per Pantheon...

Re: Pantheons - an experiment in metagaming.
 

I think it'll help to make the position of Ruler sufficiently valuable. Then, if you're a 'top 6' nation, you won't necessarily want to be second or third fiddle in a pantheon - it'll be better to be Ruler of your own group of gods and have a fair stab at first place that way. Also, it raises the possibility of assassination attempts within pantheons.

Suggestion: As per normal Dom3 games, there is only one winner. However, the rest of the pantheon get 2nd, 3rd, 4th etc. If you want to actually win, you need to be head of your own pantheon. If (as is so often the case by the later parts of the game) you think you aren't of a stature to realistically win, then you can get yourself a good chance at ranking by being a loyal member of a pantheon. With the protection of allies, you might even grow enough to have a chance at rulership later on.

Oh yes - the instant only one pantheon remains in the game, the game ends and rankings are set. If you want to backstab your Ruler, you have to prepare the attempt (and declare it, possibly to a neutral admin) ahead of time. You can't wait until all other enemies are dead, first.

Maybe a rule that one pantheon cannot be a subset of another might be appropriate.

Edit: There aren't many rewards for winning besides pride of place. Giving the winner an appropriate forum title might be an entertaining perk...

Re: Pantheons - an experiment in metagaming.
 

Re: F6D6 gods of love...

Pyronecrophilia!

But seriously, 'love' covers a sufficiently diverse set of behaviors and preferences that just about anything could be justified.

Consider the D+D FR interpretation of Loviatar (since the original Finnish doesn't have much material) - I can totally see the Lady of Pain being the 'goddess of love' in her pantheon.

Re: Pantheons - an experiment in metagaming.
 

What if the Pantheon games have a "Hall of Honor" of their own, which will be score based? For example, head of the winning pantheon gets 5 points, second deity gets 3, etc.

Re: Pantheons - an experiment in metagaming.
 

That'd work for me. But... it'd require a lot of popular take-up for a hall of fame to be viable. Are people that interested in the concept?

A possible fringe benefit of pantheon games - less late-game mm. The winning player may not have to manage so many provinces, I think.

Re: Pantheons - an experiment in metagaming.
 

What about a game where each player is doled out a theme/element, and set up ground rules to make it so that only certain combinations win.

Say, you can have multiple gods of <same elemental magic> be a victory condition. Alternately, another winning condition could be to compose a team of one of every elemental or sorcery magic. Or "good" and "evil" -- relatively speaking, AWNS vs FEDB, FE as evil given that both have a fallen elemental royalty, BE self explanatory :) .

I'd imagine identities would need to be disclosed at the start of game as there's already plenty of options for treachery in the combinations of teams involved. Second guessing a pretender's theme is going to be a pain in the butt. Given that rainbow pretenders are often a lot more fun IMHO, perhaps substitute magic with some other categorization, whether historical, geographical, or thematic.

Such a game would give some pretty interesting diplo options while keeping neat team game dynamics.

Re: Pantheons - an experiment in metagaming.
 

That'd be an interesting game, but I wasn't planning to constrain player choices in that way. I'd consider specifying it as an RP game, as that might pull some of the same effects out of the woodwork.